English

With activities and tasks targeting the 4 strands of the English curriculum - Oral Communication, Reading and Literature Studies, Writing and Media Studies - students at Hillcrest in the Applied and Academic stream are exploring classic and contemporary texts as they build literacy and critical thinking skills. Texts ranging from Shakespearean plays to 20th century Canadian and American novels to 21st century documentaries, short fiction films, non-fiction articles and essays, blogs, ads, etc., are read, viewed, and analyzed as students deepen their understanding of texts and how to negotiate their meaning. This understanding requires students to make connections between the texts and themselves, the texts and the world, and between texts and other texts.

In addition to Applied level courses (ENG1P, ENG2P, ENG3C, and ENG4C) and Academic level courses (ENG1D, ENG2D, ENG3U and ENG4U), Hillcrest offers sections of Locally Developed (ENG1L, ENG2L) and Workplace level (ENG3E, ENG4E) English courses to meet the needs of our students who are bound for the workplace after graduation.

Hillcrest's English department is also pleased to offer the OSSLC - Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course. In this course, students at the grades 11 and 12 levels have the opportunity to demonstrate the literacy skills required for graduation through a full semester course, rather than during the shortened time of the Literacy Test. Students in this course work at their own pace, building literacy skills and demonstrating these skills through assessment and evaluation of their course work.